The vegetarian : a novel

Resource Information

The work The vegetarian : a novel represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in St. Catharines Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The vegetarian : a novel

Title remainder

a novel

Statement of responsibility

Han Kang ; translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith

Creator

• Han, Kang, 1970-

Contributor

• Smith, Deborah

Subject

• Hunting -- Fiction
• Korea (South) -- Fiction
• Vegetarians -- Fiction

Genre

• Fiction

Language

• eng
• kor
• eng

Summary

Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree. Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another

Member of

• Ch'aesikjuuija

Cataloging source

CaOAUW

Dewey number

[Fic]

Index

no index present

Language note

Translated from the Korean

Literary form

novels